When Monique Samuels exited “The Actual Housewives of Potomac” in 2020, she didn’t see a actuality TV comeback in her future.
“My expertise with actuality TV has been considerably of a curler coaster to the purpose the place on the finish of all of it, I had actuality TV PTSD,” Samuels, 38, says on the high of “Love & Marriage: DC,” her new unscripted mission for OWN Community. “And I used to be just about accomplished.”
However then Carlos King referred to as. The super-producer behind “LAMDC” — a spin-off of his first OWN hit “Love & Marriage: Huntsville” — was in a position to quell any nerves she had a couple of a return simply two years later.
“I didn’t wish to do it [at first]. I stated, ‘Carlos, I don’t wish to do one other ensemble. I actually don’t,’” Samuels remembers in an unique interview with Web page Six. “After speaking to him some extra, he stated, ‘Look, this can be totally different, I assure you.’”
King’s promise panned out. Not like her expertise on Bravo, the Mila Eve Essentials founder and her husband, former NFL participant Chris Samuels, have been in a position to handpick the opposite DC, Maryland, Virginia area-based {couples} they wished to movie with.
The Samuels in the end landed on Erana and Jamie Tyler of TikTok fame and DJ Quicksilva and his podcaster spouse, Ashley Silva. Although Monique and her vibrant character are the axis of the collection, she assures us that her married mates are equally entertaining.
“Regardless that the present was type of constructed round my husband and I, when y’all meet the Silvas and the Tylers, let me let you know, they maintain their very own,” she notes. “They maintain their very own and they’re unimaginable.”
“LAMDC” is a extra snug setting for Monique, she says, because it highlights her genuine character — not the “offended” girl she feels she was portrayed to be on “RHOP.”
“I needed to go away the ‘Housewives’ franchise. It was simply not likely for me, you recognize? Once I was on ‘RHOP,’ it was all the time, ‘Oh, let’s present her when she’s offended. She’s present her when she’s zero to 100,’” says the ex-“Housewife,” whose explosive interactions with Candiace Dillard polarized her remaining days on the present.
“I used to be interacting with a gaggle of girls who have been, for essentially the most half, poisonous.”
Monique concedes that she will be able to nonetheless lose her cool at instances, however clarifies that there are “different sides” of herself that may not be left on the chopping room ground.
“This time, you get to see me as the complete person who I’m,” she elaborates. “On this scenario, I’m not being put right into a field. I’m not being edited to look just one means. It’s displaying me as a spouse, a mother, a businesswoman and a pal. I’m very passionate and felt like a variety of instances that that was lower away after I was on that different present.”
Monique — who maintains shut friendships with “Potomac’s” Karen Huger and Ashley Darby, the latter of whom she is supporting amid her divorce — says that followers will see a “true distinction” in how she and Chris navigate their marriage on “LAMDC.”
“We’re very open and really actual,” she says. “This time, it simply received’t be edited out.”
The “Not for Lazy Moms” podcast host — who shares youngsters Christopher, 9, Milani, 6, and Chase, 3, with Chris, 44 — believes the primary season of her OWN present served as a “marriage progress spurt” for the Samuels after 10 years as spouses.
“We now have a will to maintain pushing. [Divorce] shouldn’t be an choice,” the mom of three tells Web page Six. “I’m like, ‘You ain’t about to surrender on me! I’m not about to surrender on you, so we’re simply going to determine this factor out.’”
Having to dissect their marital points on-camera — “Communication is the largest one,” Monique admits — and turning to the Tylers and Silvas for assist proved to be useful for the Samuels’ relationship.
“There are occasions while you’re like, ‘Yo, perhaps [divorce] is the fitting transfer.’ However then while you’re weighing out the nice with the unhealthy, it’s all the time extra good than unhealthy for us. There are different {couples} who perhaps had points that they couldn’t get previous,” she says.
“However I really imagine in our marriage and I simply really feel like it is a rising second for us. It doesn’t really feel snug while you’re going by a progress spurt. So, that is our marriage progress spurt — and fortuitously, but sadly, it performs out on this present.”
“Love & Marriage: DC” premieres Saturday, Could 14, at 9 p.m. ET on OWN Community.
